Health Care Reform:

Health Insurance & Affordable Care Act

In Southwest Georgia, The Affordable Care Act Is Having Trouble Living Up To Its Name

In Southwest Georgia, Insurance Costs Run High

WebMD News from Kaiser Health News

By Jordan Rau

Fri, Jan 31 2014

ALBANY, Ga. — If Lee Mullins lived in Pittsburgh, he could buy mid-level health coverage for his family for $940 a month. If he lived in Beverly Hills, he would pay $1,405.

But Mullins, who builds custom swimming pools, lives in Southwest Georgia. Here, a similar health plan for his family of four costs $2,654 a month.

This largely agrarian pocket of Georgia, where peanuts and pecans are major crops and hunters bag alligators up to 10 feet long, is nearly the most expensive place in the nation to buy health insurance through the new online marketplaces created by the federal health law. The only place with higher premiums are the Colorado mountain resort areas around Aspen and Vail, a high-cost-of-living area unlike Georgia.

"We're not real happy with the way things are going in our neck of the woods," said David Hardin, Mullins' insurance broker.

All the dynamics that drive up health costs have coalesced here in Southwest Georgia, pushing up premiums. Expensive chronic conditions such as obesity and cancer are common among the quarter million people in this region. One hospital system dominates the area, leaving little competition. Only one insurer is offering policies in the online marketplace, and many physicians are not participating, limiting consumer choice.

Until these elements are brought under control, it will be challenging for the Affordable Care Act to fully live up to its name, not just here but in other parts of the country where premiums are high. In addition to this part of Georgia and the Colorado mountains, the most expensive of places include rural Nevada, parts of Wisconsin, most of Wyoming, southeastern Mississippi, southwestern Connecticut and Alaska.

In these places, government subsidies are shielding people with low and moderate incomes from the full cost of the premiums. Randy Gray, a flower shop owner in Albany, is paying just $32 a month, with taxpayers picking up the remaining $805. "That's just too good," he said.

But for those earning too much to qualify for federal financial help, the premiums can be overwhelming. A 60-year-old making $47,000 in Albany would have to pay a quarter of her income for the least expensive mid-level "silver" policy, the level most consumers are buying.